IPCC Climate Change Report Leaked

A report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change on global warming has leaked online months before it was due to be published in the fall of 2013. The IPCC has confirmed that the draft is authentic, but warns that some details could change by next September. In its present form, the report indicates that man-made greenhouse gas emissions are behind rising global temperatures, New Scientist explains.

Alex Rawl, the climate skeptic that leaked the report, signed up to be a public reviewer of drafts in progress. Reports like this have been leaked in the past by people with a variety of agendas, Andy Revkin at the Dot Earth blog points out. This latest spill brings up the question of how these reports are reviewed, and if they need to be closed until publication at all, an opinion other researchers have expressed as well.

This story is evolving very rapidly.Now highly respected skeptical blogger Jo Nova has some very terse comments about the IPCC: "The IPCC are now adding citations of critics (so they can’t be accused of ignoring them completely), but they bury the importance of those studies under glorious graphic art, ponderous bureacrat-speak, and contradictory conclusions. "